Filming Years 1920s
by zecoathediesel
Summary: The culture, the directors, the movies. Germany revels it's true art form. A popular actor faces some legal trouble. A magical studio is born and movies learn their first words.
1. Horrors of Germany

It's the year 1920, World War One had just ended about a year ago and the allies won, but there were lots of hatred towards the German people, especially the government, as even the Germans started to feel a sense of betrayal and resentment towards their own government. Thanks to the aftermath of World War One and the Treaty of Versailles, Germany was forced to pay up their debt to the war, which let them in one of the most great depressions and hyperinflation that Germany as ever experience. It was so bad that basically the money that the German people did had was nothing more than a worthless piece of paper. The only companies that did gain benefit from their money were film companies.

The movie industry from Germany was starting to catch up and starting to become popular from both nation audiences to international audiences based the films that were made in Germany. Because Germany doesn't want to imported foreign films, filmmakers have to make their own films and because of limited amount of money they had, directors and even film artist have the most freedom to make any kind of movies they want to make as long as it was cheap. This led to one of the most important and popular genres from Germany and the film industry as a whole, these were known as German Expressionism. Consider to be the early versions of horror and film noir, Expressionism was a style used during the Weimar Republic, especially in Berlin. These were films that stayed away from realism and focus more on creativity when it came to the stories and the sets. The stories would focus more on a dark side of a human, such as greed and revenge type stories or sometimes also focusing on supernatural and sci fi elements and it would sometimes been seen from a main character's perspective.

One of these movies that help popularize the genre was a film called _The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari_. The idea for the movie came about when two men, one named Hans Janowitz and the other Carl Mayer, had a strong hatred towards authority figures after their not so pleasant experience during World War One. For Hans, he served as one of the military officers for Germany and he had a pretty rough experience with the military during the war. As for Mayer he faked madness in order for him to avoid the war and as such he was put into a nuthouse and was being examined by a military psychiatrist and this also led Mayer to be distrustful towards the military was well and the psychiatrist also served as a model for the Dr. Caligari character. Later in June of 1918, the two men met each other through the help of actor Ernst Deutsch and getting some encouragement from Gilda Langer a friend of Janowitz, the two men decided to write a movie based on both of the men's distrust with authority figures.

Now although both Janowitz and Mayer had never worked in filming or writing a film script before, they were able to finish the script in just about six weeks from February to March of 1919 and there were lots of influence from both the men's personal experience that went into the movie, for example when the movie was still in the writing stage, Gilda was the based for one of the main characters in the movie named Jade and she was originally chosen to play the character in the movie, however before the movie was green lighten, Gilda encouraged Janowitz to see a fortune teller and when he did the fortune teller told him that he would survive the war, but Langer will die very young and sure enough she did after she encountered with the Spanish flu and died at the age of 23 on January 31st, 1920. This little event that happen was used as a plot point in the movie in which the character Cesare the somnambulist predicted the character Alan's death in the movie and this was one of many influence that would inspired these two writers to used these for their movie.

By the time the script for the movie was done, the two men along with German director Fritz Lang, showed the script to head production of Decla-Bioscop, Erich Pommer. Pommer asked the men to leave the script at his desk and he'll look it over, but when Mayer read the script out loud to Pommer, he was really impressed with how cheap this film could be made and he purchased the script from them that same night.

So with everything purchase the film went into production began around the end of December of 1919. Originally Fritz Lang was the chosen director for this movie, but because he was too busy working on his own little movie called _The Spiders_ the directing role was given to Robert Wiene instead. The making of the sets and costumes for the movie was handled by three men, Hermann Warm, Walter Reimann and Walter Rohrig. When Wiene present Warm the script for the movie, Warm agreed that an Expressionism style would be best suited for the story. The team build the sets using paints on canvas and paper and even most of the shadows were also painted on the wall. There were also no exterior shots, which was a bit unusual for films at the time, the camera was mostly there to show the sets and nothing more, there were some close ups and panning movements here and there. So the movie was treated almost more like a stage play than a cinematic movie, but the producers loved the sets and were so impress by them that they gave the artist the freedom to make the sets however they see fit, as long as it stays within their budget.

So with the sets taken care the team went and hold audition for actors to their movie. The two main villains, Dr. Caligari was intended to be played by either Werner Krauss or Paul Wegener, but Werner accepted the role, asking if he could make some changes to his make up and costume, to which they accepted. The role for Cesare the somnambulist went to Conrad Veidt, both of these actors have worked in some type of Expressionist style in theaters before, so they were both conformable on what they needed to do.

So the big thing that this movie is most remembered for was that this was one of the earliest films to have a frame story and the first ever film to have a twist ending, so spoilers… but in the movie, the whole story of Caligari is told by our main character Francis and he tells this old guy about his experience in figuring out who Caligari his and gets him tried and arrested for murder, but it turns out that at the end of the film he's actually one of Caligari's metal patients and it's very possible that the whole story he told was a complete lie and he's crazy.

Now this sort of frame story was not feature in the original script, in the original script, the movie actually opens to a party hosted by are two main characters, Francis and Jane, and the guests asks Francis to tell the story of what happened to him 20 years ago. This part of the frame story was changed to the version we have today. Wiene liked the idea of having a story being a complete lie and agree to the change, but both Janowitz and Mayer were opposed to the idea of adding a frame story and even going so far as to say that they turned their film into a cliche, but the change was still made in the end.

The film was released on February 26th, 1920 at the Marmorhaus, in Berlin. It was a huge succeeded when it was premiered in theaters so much so that it was shown in theaters for four weeks, which was amazing at the time.

It got some various different views from critics, with some really praising the heck out of the movies visuals and actors, while others thought the film was too high-brow to become popular in Germany. It was the same reaction when this film was released worldwide. While some people were still distrustful to the Germans after World War One, others have calmed down and allowed to show German films to the public in other countries.

Today this film is one of the most important and loved films by most film buffs and horror buffs, with people calling it the first true horror film and there were lots of things this movie did that left inspirations towards future films, it help start the creepy and horror genre, help start the aspects of makeup in horror films, as well it help establish the important of twist and twist ending especially and this would lead to many more horror film with the same look and feel that Caligari had with movies like _Nosferatu_ , _Metropolis_ and even American monster horror films. It's also still talked about the idea of someone who is crazy to the reality of what's going on the movie and it's also talked about for the similarities between the Dr. Caligari character and the German military using their own people to commit horrible crimes.


	2. The Kid

_The Kid_ is a film starting Charlie Chaplin and Jackie Coogan and it's about Chaplin finding an abandoned baby and decide to raise him and love him like a father, and it's a great film, because this is the first time where a comedy film is also a serious and dramatic film as well.

Before this film, most comedy films were just silly slapstick and people doing stupid stuff to make an audience laugh, but this film was not only supposed to make people laugh, but to make people cry as well. Now Charlie has had sort of sad moments before, but they were usually short, this one actually had a problem and a sort of action that's actual important to the story, such as the scene where Charlie tries to save his son from being taken away by agents from the orphanages. That was one of the most sad, but also funny moments that the movie offers.

The film got its inspiration from an event that happened in Charlie's life. The event that happened was the death of his very young son. Chaplin's son was just a baby and he was just ten days old when he passed away. Which some people believed that Charlie's relationship with the kid Jackie, both in the film and in real life was really real, because of the fact that Charlie never got to be the father for his own son and he started treating the little kid as if he was really his own son.

So when the film was released, it was met with a ton of praise for how funny and charming this film was. This film proved that you can turn a serious type of film and still make it funny if you have the right mind and idea for it. It was the second highest grossing film of that year, earning about $5,450,000 national and it's still one of Chaplin's best works to this day and one of the best silent films ever and a little fun fact, the kid Jackie Coogan would later star in many other films, and he would later play Uncle Fester in the 1960's _Adams Family_.


	3. The Fatty Trial

So during the 1910s and the early years of both Hollywood and filming as a whole, a lot of actors, actresses and directors were really starting to become so well known that it was impossible for some of these actors to walk down a street without getting recognize at least once by someone. We had magazines of these actors and directors, from written interviews to just simple little gossip or rumors about what this actor or director is doing right now in their life. You always had people knowing at least one famous actor from a movie, whether it be Charlie Chaplin or Lillian Gish, or even directors like D.W. Griffith. These celebrities were really getting huge and making a crap ton of money at the same time. So far at this point, there were no big drama events that could actually ruin a celebrities life, both in their career and their own life; but then that all change and it happen to one very unfortunate person that day, and it would change not only this actor's life, but it would also be one of the key factors that would change the rules of Hollywood and movies as a whole for awhile. During the 1910s, outside of Charlie Chaplin, Roscoe Arbuckle, also known as Fatty Arbuckle, was another very popular comedy actor and he had his share of fans for many years and has earn lots of money. By 1921, Arbuckle has signed a contract with Paramount pictures for $3 million to make up for 18 feature films and to celebrate, Arbuckle invited some friends, including two actors named Lowell Sherman and Fred Fishback to a party at the Saint Francis Hotel in San Francisco and everything was going great, but then things turn for the worst.

Two of people that attended the party were a 26 year old actress by the name of Virginia Rappe and one very shady woman by the name of Maude Delmont. So during the party, Virginia Rappe consume lots and lots of alcohol, which was something she was most known for and she was in the same hotel room that Arbuckle was staying at. When Roscoe found Ms. Rappe on the bathroom floor in his hotel he helped place her on the bed and left the room, to get help. After coming back to his hotel room with his friends and Maude Delmont they found Ms. Rappe on the floor near the bed tearing her clothes and acting very violent. So to calm her down, the party guest placed her in a bathtub with cold water and moved her to another room and got the hotel manager and a doctor to take care of her, but then things took a turn for the worse, as she was later found dead in a hospital on September 9th, 1921, due to having an infection caused by a ruptured bladder.

So remember that comment a made about Delmont being shady. Well Delmont was no stranger at all to the police, she's was a very sneaky a sly woman during the peak of the Hollywood era, she was known for using girls to go after famous men and get them caught in a scandal and then use that same scandal to blackmail them for money and she knew Arbuckle would be worth a lot of money if she blackmailed him. So Delmont went to the police and basically tried to frame Arbuckle for the death of Rappe and so Arbuckle was now the main suspect and at first was tried for the murder of Virginia Rappe and this was the first and the biggest scandal that has ever hit Hollywood at that time. Now a days it probably wouldn't be that surprising to hear that someone from Hollywood committed some sort of crime, but back then that was really huge and it was unheard of. A famous actor that people are saying raped and killed a woman. Newspapers about this story was selling like crazy and almost everyone started to have a hatred towards Arbuckle. Some of them even wanted him to get the death penalty for the murder.

So the trial for Arbuckle started on November 14, 1921 and the prosecutor for the case was Matthew Brady and the defense was Gavin McNab. Now Matthew Brady was doing anything he can to get Arbuckle guilty of rape and murder, and the way he did this was threatening his witnesses that if they didn't testify against Arbuckle that they would get thrown in jail, as the court later found during a cross-examination. At one point, Brady was considering having Delmont testify against Arbuckle, but with the way she kept changing her story, he knew that she would not be great as a witness so she was never called to the stand.

The defense also tried anything they could to get Arbuckle innocent as Arbuckle himself testified for the court at least twice. He claimed that he first saw Rappe at the bathroom of his hotel room vomiting and help her to the bed and few party guest helped her and then when he and guest came back he claimed that she was ripping her clothes and going into a violent rampage so he put her into a bathtub full of cool water to calmed her down and then called the hotel doctor.

Once the jury realized that there was no direct evidence on Arbuckle being a murderer and rapist, Arbuckle was a freeman after the three trials, but unfortunately his filming and acting career was over. As by the time the third trial was up, Hollywood put a temporary ban on Arbuckle's films and even the head of the new founded Motion Pictures Producers and Distributors of America (MPPDA), Will H. Hays banned Arbuckle from working in movies again. Now the ban was lifted a few months later, but the damage was already down and most studios did not wanted to be associated with Arbuckle anymore so with the help of his friend and student Buster Keaton, Fatty actual did direct a few more films under a different name, and that was basically it as Arbuckle would then die from a heart attack on June 28, 1933, just when Warner Bros. was about to give him a contract to star in some feature films.

Like I said, today it wouldn't be that much of a shock to learn that one of your favorite stars may or may not have committed a crime or being wrongly framed for a crime, but this big scandal really changed the mind set that people had on Hollywood as more scandals like this were starting to rise and Delmot was touring across the country giving speech on how Hollywood is evil that now Hollywood was facing a lot pressure and they had to do something to let people know they this was a moral and good company, how they did that is something you'll have to see once we've reach the 1930s.


	4. Fairbanks and Swashbucklers

Up into this point entering the 1920s, we've almost cover a couple of genres we see today in film, from comedy to drama to even animation, and along those main genres we've seen some different types of sub-genres to go along with the main ones like romantic drama or romantic comedy, but what about some action to go along with romance? I mean the closet thing we've seen where action is part of the main focus along with romance is Western films. So what about action films that takes place in other time periods, or better yet, but about the type of action where instead of guns we have swords or fencing going on and even more better, we throw in some fantasy elements as well.

Enter Douglas Fairbanks, another famous and well known actor during the silent film era, and this is the guy that help popularize and got the action films genre starting in a new direction.

Born on May 23, 1883, Fairbanks, like most early actors, got his acting career started at the Elitch Gardens Theater in Colorado. Then after moving to Los Angeles in 1915 with his family, moved from acting into a theater to acting in a movie. He signed a contract with Triangle Pictures and began working as an actor. His early films were mostly western, comedy, adventures films with a couple action that was seen in other films.

During his time in Hollywood he would meet people like Mary Pickford, whom he would later married after divorcing his first wife, then Charlie Chaplin and he was one of the people to help sell war bonds during the first world war.

After the war ended, Douglas, along with Mary, Charlie and eventually D.W. Griffith all formed a new movie studio that would be called United Artist, an independent movie studio that was made so that these people can control their own work and salary. Now Douglas, entering in the 1920s, wanted to do something a little bit different than what he's usually been doing. He wanted to go back to an action adventure type story, but make them more elaborate and fun and also creative. He wanted something to add to the typical boy-meets-girl romance stories that he's been doing for ages. That's when he came across a story from a magazine called _The Curse of Capistrano_ and thought, "This could work." So after convicting Fred Niblo to make a movie about the story, United Artist released the film under the titled _The Mark of Zorro_ and it did decently when it first came out, I mean this was the movie that help Bill Finger the creator of Batman to create the Batman comics and this movie also lead to more action films being made from _Robin Hood_ to _Black Pirate_ a lot of the action films were being made with Fairbanks starting, writing, and producing most of them. These movies where again something new and they were creative and fun for the whole family. In fact these movies would help inspired other actors like Errol Flynn to continue the action craze and later on we'll start to see some different type of action movies, but we'll save those for next time.


	5. Nosferatu

Well we get to take a look at another Germany film again, and today we get to take a look at _Nosferatu_ also known as, "why you should get a person's permission to use their source material for your film."

The film takes place in the year 1838, and stars a character named Thomas Hunter who his employer, Herr Knock, sends him to Transylvania because a person by the name of Count Orlok wishes to buy a house near Hunter's own home. Only to find out that *gasp* Orlok's a vampire. So now they have to do something about him before he kills all the people.

The newly founded German studio, Prana Film, wanted their studio to focus on occult and supernatural films, basically getting on the German Expression craze, so they decided that a vampire story would be perfect as the first supernatural film. Now at the time, one of the most popular vampire stories was Bram Stoker's _Dracula_ but for whatever reason, the film studio just couldn't get the rights to the novel. I don't know if it was because the publishers or Stoker's widow, Florence, refused to sell the rights, or if the studio didn't have enough money to get the rights, but regardless they still went for making a Dracula movie without getting the permission to make an adaptation of the novel.

The screenplay was handed to Henrik Galeen. To try and avoid a copyright infringement, Galeen basically made some changes as well as change most of the names of the characters in the novel and even made a new original vampire named Count Orlok. One of the things that were changed from the novel to the film was instead of Orlok creating new vampires he just straight up kills them and there's even a sub plot with Orlok and the plague, but the most well known change was that this was the first vampire movie where vampires can actually die in the sunlight. In the original _Dracula_ novel, the sunlight can weaken the monster, but can't kill him. So they change that part from the novel to the movie in order to try and make it more original.

The directing was then handed off to F. W. Murnau a famous German director who would later directed one of the first ever films to win an Academy Award, _Sunrise_. The shooting for the film began on August in 1921. Now due to the inflation that was still going on in Germany and because we have a new German studio, the film had only one camera available, which means there was only one original negative. So Murnau and cameraman, Fritz Arno Wagner had to make sure and plan carefully on where to shoot certain scenes for the movie without messing up. So there were times where they had to plan out everything before shooting, including the final scene where Ellen sacrifices herself and Orlok dies in the sunlight.

The film was released on March 4, 1922 at the Marmorsaal hall of Berlin Zoological Garden. To help promote the film, a German magazine called _Buhne und Film_ showed some pictures of the film and the production as well as some reports and a film essay and there was a party at the main hall itself where people could dress up in costumes.

The film was not too much of a big success with its initial audiences, but there were enough people and critics that were amazed by the film, including the directing and art style the film offered, but once Florence Stoker got word about this movie, oh man did she really go after the studio. So much that the studio had no choice but to file for bankruptcy to settle on the copyright lawsuit and that was it for Prana Film.

If that wasn't enough she and the court then ordered all prints of the films to be destroyed and she almost succeeded in getting the film lost and banned forever, but a film print was already disrupted all over the world, that eventually even more of these prints were made around the world and now a days people and critics considered this film one of the greatest horror and even vampire movie ever made.

It gained a huge cult following and some of the elements found in Nosferatu would later be used in other vampire films, most notably vampire dying in sunlight, but even the look on Orlok would be use in a vampire miniseries called the _Salem's Lot_ and the film itself would later get a remake in 1979, which by that time the copyright for the original _Dracula_ novel would be in the public domain so this person and the studio doesn't have to worry about being sued by someone.

Much like Dracula himself, Florence herself couldn't stop the vampire from rising out of its coffin.


End file.
